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Common Attack Vectors
And Keys to Protecting Your Business
Pondurance Takes a Risk-Based Approach to Threat Intelligence
We prioritize and hunt for threats that impact your organization the most.
Ransomware
Ransomware is a malicious type of software designed to encrypt an individual’s or organization’s data, rendering it inaccessible until a ransom demand is met. Ransomware attacks are becoming more prevalent against companies of all industries. Cybercriminals are changing the techniques they use to execute attacks. Initially, ransomware had a single function where the attacker entered a network and encrypted the data. It then evolved to double extortion where the attacker now steals data and threatens to leak it and encrypts the data and holds it for ransom.
Cybersecurity organizations like Pondurance take a risk-based approach to your cybersecurity needs and focus efforts aligned with your business objectives and desired outcomes. Pondurance assists organizations with implementing foundational controls and offers specialized services aimed at helping clients protect against potential threats like ransomware attacks. Download our eBook, or check out our blog library on ransomware to learn more.
- Keep all computers and devices patched
- Enable MFA
- Limit user access
- Allow only authorized applications
- Use network segmentation
- Limit remote access as much as possible
- Establish 360-degree visibility
- Monitor and analyze logs
- Provide consistent security awareness training
- Encrypt endpoints
Identify. Prioritize. Protect.
Your company has its own unique set of cyber risks. Your lines of business, your technical infrastructure, threats, employees, third-party vendors, and other variables all factor into your cyber risk profile.
Each year, risks continue to grow more complex and new threats raise their ugly heads. Though you can’t control the evolving cyber landscape, you can control your cybersecurity strategy.
By adopting a risk-based, proactive approach to cybersecurity aligned with your specific business objectives, compliance regulations, and desired business outcomes, you can prevent and protect your organization against cyber threats. Partnering with Pondurance will minimize your risk of falling victim to costly and damaging cyberattacks and build your cyber maturity and resiliency.
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, is a term that encompasses a wide range of software programs designed with the intent to cause harm to computer systems, networks, and users. Cybercriminals create malware to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data, disrupt computer operations or networks, or simply spread chaos in the digital world. With the rise in our reliance on technology and the internet, it has become increasingly important for individuals and organizations alike to understand what malware is, how it works, and how they can prevent cyberattacks.
Protecting against malware requires an ongoing effort, and in many cases, organizations will implement foundational controls and partner with a cybersecurity adviser like Pondurance to ensure they have cybersecurity programs with comprehensive methods focused on their specific needs. Download our eBook to get started:
- Install reputable antivirus software and ensure it remains up to date
- Regularly update your operating system and all installed applications
- Enable built-in firewalls on your devices
- Be cautious of email attachments and links from unknown sources
- Utilize strong passwords and enable multifactor authentication (MFA) where possible
- Create regular backups of your important files and store them securely offsite
- Employee training – Educate staff members about potential threats such as phishing emails and social engineering tactics employed by cybercriminals
- Network segmentation – Divide your organization’s network into separate zones to minimize the spread of malware should an attack occur
- Vulnerability management – Regularly assess, identify, and remediate vulnerabilities in your IT infrastructure before they can be exploited by attackers
- Incident response planning – Develop a well-defined incident response plan outlining roles, responsibilities, and procedures to follow when faced with a security breach
Phishing
Phishing is a deceptive practice that cybercriminals employ to obtain sensitive information, such as login credentials, credit card numbers, and personal data from unsuspecting individuals. Cybersecurity experts have identified this nefarious activity as one of the most prevalent threats in today’s digital landscape. With a primary focus on email communications, phishing attacks often involve fraudsters posing as legitimate entities to deceive their targets into revealing valuable information or executing actions that could compromise their security. Organizations must remain vigilant in educating their staff about the various phishing examples and how to protect against such threats.
Additional Phishing Resources
Spear Phishing
Spear phishing is a highly targeted digital social engineering attack that aims to deceive individuals into divulging sensitive information or granting unauthorized access to their accounts. This form of cyberattack has gained notoriety in recent years due to its increasing prevalence and sophistication. Unlike traditional phishing techniques, which cast a wide net in hopes of ensnaring unsuspecting users, spear phishing involves meticulously crafted messages designed to appeal specifically to the intended victim. By impersonating familiar contacts or trusted organizations, these malicious communications can be exceedingly difficult to recognize and resist.
Protecting against spear phishing requires a multifaceted approach that combines employee education and training, robust email security measures, and swift incident response capabilities. By partnering with cybersecurity experts like those at Pondurance who offer managed detection and response and incident response services, organizations can significantly enhance their security postures and reduce the likelihood of falling victim to these highly targeted and deceptive attacks.
Additional Spear Phishing Resources
Business Email Compromise (BEC)
BEC is a sophisticated form of phishing attack that targets organizations and their employees. By exploiting human vulnerabilities, BEC perpetrators deceive victims into transferring funds or disclosing sensitive information to unauthorized recipients. A typical BEC attack often begins with a phishing email that appears to come from a trusted source such as a high-ranking executive within the organization.
The key to organizations protecting themselves and their employers from falling victim to a BEC scam is educating employees on how to scrutinize incoming emails for signs of fraudulence and how to validate requests for sensitive information. Organizations can instruct employees to contact the purported sender through an independent channel such as a phone call or text message, establish robust internal controls within the organization, implement policies requiring multiple approvals for large financial transactions, and conduct periodic audits and reconciliations to detect unauthorized payments.
Additional BEC Resources
Threat Intelligence
Threat intelligence represents one of the most crucial pillars in the realm of cybersecurity. In an ever-connected and digital world, organizations are constantly faced with a myriad of cyber threats. As digitization continues to engulf society, the potential risks continue to grow, demonstrating the importance of risk management strategies based on advanced cybersecurity threat intelligence. Critically, threat intelligence serves to identify, analyze and mitigate potential threats before they materialize, providing a proactive approach to protect sensitive data, infrastructures, and systems.
In essence, threat intelligence is strategized information that deals with potential or existing cyber threats that may harm an organization. This is accomplished by thorough collection, proactive analysis, and distribution of information about emerging or existing threats and malware threats. A reliable threat intelligence company crucially acts as an indispensable partner, aiding organizations to secure itself from an increasingly dangerous cyber world.
Coupling a professional threat intelligence company with a robust threat intelligence platform can deliver profound and advanced defensive capabilities. Such a platform compiles data from various sources, enforces automated analysis on the accumulated data, and provides actionable insights based on the analysis. This helps organizations to understand and prepare for both the existing and potential threats which in-turn allows for informed decision-making about security protocols, infrastructure, and strategies.
The specialized services from a threat intelligence company range from analyzing real-time threats to conducting in-depth studies on trends in cybercrime. Often bolstered with machine learning and artificial intelligence, these threat intelligence services equip organizations with predictive techniques to correlate trends, detect anomalies, and identify patterns in user behavior and network traffic. These methodologies are implemented to detect, prevent and respond to threats, thereby enhancing the cybersecurity posture of the organization.
Pondurance represents a reliable choice in acquiring threat intelligence services. The company provides a holistic range of services integrated with advanced analytics, prompt threat detection and response, thereby minimizing the time taken to mitigate an attack or threat. It follows a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity, incorporating key elements of threat intelligence into their service suite and actively empowering their clientele with the ability to anticipate and defend against cyber threats.
An essential element of threat intelligence is the threat intelligence lifecycle stages that involves planning, collection, analysis, and dissemination. The planning stage highlights what a particular organization needs to protect, the potential perils, and assigns key intelligence indicators. Following it, the collection phase amasses data from numerous sources including, open web, dark web, and internal threats. Subsequently, the analysis phase organizes and assesses this information, collaborating with artificial intelligence to make sense of an overwhelming volume of data. Finally, the dissemination stage delivers these actionable insights for implementation or formulating effective strategies against potential threats.
Cyber threat intelligence is undeniably a vital prerequisite for companies to shield themselves from the relentless onslaught of potential cyber threats. Apart from merely protecting against harsh financial repercussions, it also aids in safeguarding a company’s reputation, further emphasizing its increasing importance. By collaborating with a proven cybersecurity company like Pondurance who operationalize threat intelligence as part of their managed detection and response services, businesses can ensure they are well fortified against cyber threats and securely navigate the complex contours of the cyber landscape.
Threat Intelligence Lifecycle Explained
Threat intelligence represents a critical component in the cybersecurity landscape. This concept, which revolves around the systematic gathering, analysis, and dissemination of information concerning cyber threats, offers businesses an added layer of protection against potential attacks. The focus of threat intelligence is to understand the strategies, resources, and intentions of potential threat actors. By anticipating these potential threats, businesses can implement preventative measures.
The threat intelligence lifecycle is an essential part of this cybersecurity strategy. It is a process with several stages including collection, processing, analysis, dissemination, and feedback. It starts with the collection phase, where data about potential threats is gathered from various sources. This data is then processed into an understandable format before it’s analyzed to identify trends and patterns.
The strategic threat intelligence stage comes into play in the analysis phase. Here, the data is dissected and further studied to predict and mitigate future cyber threats. Following analysis, the information is disseminated to relevant teams within the organization who can utilize it in decision-making processes. Finally, the feedback stage entails the evaluation of the threat intelligence process and its effectiveness to enable constant improvement.
The cyber threat intelligence framework, and more specifically the threat intelligence lifecycle, aligns with the guidelines provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST standards provide a structure for creating a comprehensive cybersecurity program, and threat intelligence plays a vital role within this framework by helping businesses anticipate, deter, and counter security threats.
One of the organizations at the forefront of utilizing threat intelligence and cybersecurity threat hunting in its cybersecurity approach is Pondurance. This firm employs a technologically advanced framework to gather, analyze, and utilize strategic threat intelligence. As a result, this robust intelligence lifecycle assists Pondurance in remaining two-steps ahead of potential cyber threats, bolstering the cybersecurity of the businesses they partner with.
Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence
Delving into the bind of cybersecurity threat intelligence, it is crucial to understand this roux of modern technology that organizations, like Pondurance, employ to bolster their managed detection and response, incident response and other professional services offered to their clients. Threat intelligence, in the realm of cybersecurity, refers to organized, analyzed, and refined data about potential or current attacks on an organization’s IT environment. By understanding and gauging the intricacies of cybersecurity threats, a swift analysis of the potential risks involved empowers firms to avert these threats and safeguard their cyber ecosystems with diligence.
The intricate nature of cybersecurity threat intelligence unfolds in an organized lifecycle. This cycle initiates with the ‘planning and direction’ phase, which involves determining the requirements of threat intelligence. This is followed by the ‘collection’ phase wherein data about potential threats are gathered from various sources. The ‘processing’ phase then validates this data and makes it ready for further analysis. Next, the ‘analysis’ phase makes sense of the raw data by combining it with background pegs of precedence and context, offering a clear understanding of the threats. The final ‘dissemination’ phase sends the intelligence to those that need it, including threat hunting professionals and automated systems.
The pool of these threat hunters is essential in the framework of cybersecurity, rendering their insights on these threats invaluable. These cyber sleuths proactively seek out lurking threats, often undetected by traditional security measures, and push the boundaries to cripple these threats even before they hatch. Companies, like Pondurance, operationalizing cyber threat intelligence into their managed detection and response services, lean on the expertise of these hunters to reinforce digital boundaries and avert potential cyber calamities for their clients.
Rooted in this dynamic spectrum of cybersecurity threat intelligence are the essential threat intelligence tools. These tools, ranging from premium ones to open-source software, aid organizations in automate data collection, parse information to sort out potential threats, and provide an active response to mitigate attacks.
Notably, the essence of threat intelligence feeds has an unmistakable bearing on threat detection. These feeds, offering a continuous stream of data about new or evolving threats, are integral to optimized threat intelligence. Whether it is free feeds, woolgathered through open-source intelligence, or top-rated paid feeds for a more comprehensive data set, these feeds energize threat detection, helping organizations devise proactive security responses.
By saddling the arsenal of cybersecurity threat intelligence, companies like Pondurance affirm their mission to neutralize threats and maintain the sanctity of an organization’s digital landscape. Yet, the ongoing evolution of threats strikes the necessity of remaining nimble and orchestrated in approach, relying on finely tuned threat intelligence feeds and factoring in the ingenuity of threat hunters.
Gone are the days when cybersecurity threat intelligence was considered an optional layer of defense for companies. It is now a crucial element in safeguarding organizations against cyber threats and protecting their reputation. Partnering with specialized firms like Pondurance, which incorporate threat intelligence into their managed detection and response services, can empower businesses to navigate the intricate world of cybersecurity with confidence and resilience. Cyber threat intelligence is no longer just a “nice-to-have” feature; it is a necessity in today’s digital landscape.